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Blued Secures Funding From Chinese State-Backed Media

blued

Chinese gay dating app Blued this week announced it had secured an eight figure RMB strategic investment from a state-backed media group.

The app received the funding, for tens of millions of yuan, from Shan Shui Cong Rong Media Investment Co.

This is the investment arm of the state-backed newspaper group The Beijing News, whose president Dai Zigeng serves as the firm’s chairman.

According to e27, the investment was made because of Blued’s growth in “live streaming, e-commerce, gaming healthcare and entertainment”.

Since launching in 2012, Blued is now China’s most popular gay dating app with over 27m users (6m outside China), and is estimated to be worth a whopping $600m.

The app currently supports 13 languages, and has offices in Thailand, Vietnam and the UK.

In December, Blued revealed it was joining an extension of Hornet’s $8m funding round, which was led by Ventech China.

Read more about the partnership here.

Simon Edmunds

Simon is the former editor of Global Dating Insights. Born in Newcastle, he has an English degree from Queen Mary, London and after working for the NHS, trained as a journalist with the Press Association. Passionate about music, journalism and Newcastle United.

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